Shardik (67 page)

‘But though I was never in love
with
him, and was grateful for his self-restraint, yet still I honoured and admired him, and I would have consented to be his consort if he had wished. Much of the time he was dour and brooding. Pleasures here are meagre enough, but always he had
little
zest for any - as though he were punishing himself for the loss of Ortelga. He had a sharp, mordant tongue and no illusions.’ ‘I remember.’

“Don’t ask me to come out drinking with you,” he said once to his men. “I might get chased downstream by a bear.” They knew what he meant, for although he’d never told the
m the story, news had reached Ze
ray of the battle in the foothills and the fall of
Bekla
to the Ortelgans. When anything went wrong he used to say, “You’d better get yourselves a bear - you’ll do better then.” But though they feared him, they always trusted and respected him and they followed him without hesitation. As I said, there was no one here who was the least match for him. He was too good for Zeray. I suppose any other baron, forced to fly as he was, would have crossed to Deelguy or made for Ikat or even Terekenalt. But he - he hated pity as a cat hates water. It was his pride, and the bitter streak in him,
that
sent him to Zeray like a murderer on the run. He actually enjoyed pitting himself against the misery and danger of the place. “There’s a lot one could do here,” he said to me one evening, while we were fishing inshore. “There’s some passable land on that bit of plain round Zeray, and plenty of timber in the forests. It could never be a rich province, but it could be reasonably well off, if only the peasants weren’t frightened to death and there were roads to Kabin and Linsho. Law and order and some trade - that’s all that’s needed. If I’m not mistaken, it’s here that the Telthearna runs closest to Bekla. Before we’re done we’ll have two good, stout ropes stretched across these straits and a raft ferry running along them. I’m not an
Ortelga
n for nothing - I know what can be done with rope; and how to make it, too. Easier than contriving the Dead Belt, I assure you. Think of opening a trade route to the east - Bekla would pay any money for the use of that.”’

‘ “They’d come and annex the province,” I said.

‘“They could
try,”
he answered, “but it’s more secure than Ortelga ever was. Forty miles from the Vrako to Zeray, and twenty miles of it thick forest and hills, difficult going unless someone builds a road; which we could destroy whenever we liked. I tell you, my girl, we’ll have the last laugh on the bear yet.”

‘Now the truth was that not even Bel-ka-Trazet could bring prosperity to a place like Zeray, because he had no barons or men of any quality, and could not be everywhere himself. What could be done, he did. He punished murder and robbery and stopped raiding inland, and he persuaded or bribed a few peasants to bring in wood and wool and do their best to teach carpentry and pottery, so that the town could start bartering what it made. We bartered dried fish too, and rushes for thatching and matting - anything we could. But compared even with Ortelga it was very thin-flowing, rickety business, simply because of the sort of men who come here - criminals can’t work, you know - and the lack of even one road. Bel-ka-Trazet realized this, and it was less than a year ago now that he resolved on a new scheme.

‘We knew what had been happening in Ikat and Bekla - there were fugitives here from both cities. Bel-ka-Trazet had been impressed by what he had heard of Santil-ke-
Erketlis
and finally he decided to try to drive a bargain with him. The difficulty was that we had so terribly
little
to offer. As the Baron said, we were like a man trying to sell a lame ox or a lopsided pot. Who would trouble to come and take
Zeray
? Even to a general not facing an enemy army in the field, it would hardly be worth the march from Kabin. We discussed it between ourselves again and again and at last Bel-ka-Trazet devised an offer which he thought might appeal both to Santil and to our own followers. His idea was to tell Santil that if ever he were to march north, whether or not he succeeded in taking Bekla he was welcome to annex Zeray. We would help him in any way he wished. In particular, we would help him to close the gap of Linsho in the north and then to round up all slave-traders who might have fled east of the Vrako to escape him. We would also tell him that we believed that with skilled rope-makers and carpenters, and the labour of his own pioneers working to their orders, it would be possible to construct a raft-ferry across the Telthearna narrows. Then, if all went well, he could build a road from Kabin to
Zeray
; and these enterprises too, if they appealed to him, we would assist in every way we could. Finally, if he were not afraid to enlist men from Zeray, we would send him as many as possible, provided
that
he would grant them pardons.

‘The five or six men whom the Baron called his councillors agreed that this offer was our best hope of remaining alive, either in Zeray or out of it, if only the Yeldashay would agree to come. But to get a message to Santil would be difficult. There are only two ways out of
this
country east of the Vrako. One is northwards through the gap of Linsho; the other is west across the Vrako in the neighbourhood of Kabin. Below Kabin the Vrako is impassable, all along the Tonilda border to its confluence with the Telthearna. Desperate men find their way to Zeray, but even more desperate men cannot contrive a way out.

‘
It might well prove impossible, we thought, for anyone to reach
Ikat Yeldashay, but at least we bad a man who was ready to try. His name was Elstrit, a l
ad of about seventeen who, rathe
r than abandon his father, had joined him in his flight from Terekenalt. What his father had done I don’t know, for he died before I came to Zeray and Elstrit had been living on his wits ever since,
until
he had the sense to throw in his lot with
Bel
-ka-Trazet. He was not only strong and clever, but he had the advantage of not being a known criminal or a wanted man. Clever or not, he still had to attempt the Vrako crossing at Kabin. It was
the
Baron who hit on
the
idea of forging him a Beklan slave-dealer’s warrant. In Kabin he was to say
that
he was working for Lalloc, a known dealer in children, and had the protection of
the
Ortelgans in
Bekla
;
that
on Lalloc’s
instructions he had entered Ze
ray province by way of Linsho Gap and travelled through it to sec whether
the
country offered any prospects for a slave-raid. He was now returning to report to Lalloc in
Bekla
. Then, later, as soon as
he approached the province of Ye
lda, he could destroy the forged warrant It was a thin enough story, but the seal on
the
warrant was a very good imitation of
the
bear seal of
Bekla
(it was made for us by a notorious forger) and we could only hope for good luck. Elstrit crossed the Vrako about three months,
ago, soon after
the
rains, and what became of him after that we don’t know - not even so much as whether he ever reached Ikat.

‘It was a month after that
that
the Baron fell sick. Many fall sick in Z
eray. It’s no wonder - the filthine
ss of the place, rats, lice, infection, continual strain and fear, the burden of guilt and the loss of hope. The Baron had had a hard life and in spite of himself he was failing. You can guess how we nursed him, Ankray and I. We were like men in a wilderness of wild beasts, who tend a fire in the night and pray for dawn. But the fire went out - it went out.’

The tears stood brimming in her eyes. She brushed them sharply away, hid her face in her hands a moment and then,
with
a deep sigh, went on.

‘Once he spoke of you. “That fellow
Kelderek
,” he said, “I’d have killed him if the Tuginda hadn’t sent for us that night I don’t wish him ill any longer, but for Ortelga’s sake I only hope he can finish what he’s started.” It was a few days later that he spoke to our men as best he could - for by that time he was very weak. He advised them to spare no pains to get news of Santil’s intentions and if
there
seemed the least hope,
at all costs to keep order in Ze
ray until he came. “Otherwise you’ll all be dead in less
than
a year,” he said, “and the place will be worse than ever it was before we started.” After that, only Ankray and I were with him until he died. He went very hard. You’d expect that, wouldn’t you? The last thing he said was, “The bear - tell them the bear -” I bent over him and asked, “What of the bear, my lord?”, but he never spoke again. I watched his face -
that
terrible face - guttering down like the wax of a spent candle. When he was gone, we did what we had to do. I covered his eyes with a pad of wet cloth, and I remember how, as we were laying the arms straight, the cloth slipped, so
that
the dead eyes opened and I saw them staring into mine.

‘You have seen his grave. There were heavy hearts - and frightened hearts - at the time when that was made. It was over a month ago, and
every
day since then Ze
ray has slipped a
little
further from between our hands. We have not lost it yet, but I will tell you what it is like. I remember that once, when I was a
little
girl, I stood watching a miller driving his ox round and round to grind corn. Two men who thought he had cheated them began quarrelling with him, and at last they dragged him away and beat him. The ox went on plodding round, first at the same speed, then slower, until at last - and anxiously, as my clear child’s eye could see - it dared to try what would happen if it stopped. Nothing happened, and
it lay down. Half the men in Ze
ray are wondering whether
they
dare to defy us. Any day now some will try. I know our men -
the
Baron’s men. Without him they will never hold together. It’s only a matter of
time
.

‘Every evening I have gone to his tomb and prayed for help and deliverance. Sometimes Ankray comes with me, or perhaps another, but often I go
alone. There’s no modesty in Ze
ray, and I’m past being afraid. As long as none dares insult me, I take it as a sign that we
still
have some grip on the place; and it does no harm to behave as though I believed we had. S
ometimes I have prayed that Santi
l’s army may come, but more often I use no words, simply offering to God my hope and longing, and my presence at the grave of the man who honoured and respected me.

‘On Quiso, the Tuginda used to teach us that real and actual trust in God was the whole life of a priestess. “God can afford to wait,” she used to say. “Whether to convert the unbelieving, to reward the just or to punish
the
wicked — God can afford to wait. With Him, everything comes home in the end. Our work is not only to believe that, but to show
that
we believe it bv everything that we say and do.”’

Melathys
wept qui
e
tly
and conti
nuously as she went on. ‘I had put out of my mind how I came to
Zeray
and
the
reason why. My treachery, my cowardice, my sacrilege - perhaps I
thought
that
my sufferings had blotted them out, had dug a ditch between me and that priestess who broke her vows, betrayed Lord Shardik and failed the Tuginda. Tonight, when I turned and saw who was standing behind me, do you know what I thought? I thought, “She has come to Zeray to find me, either to renounce or forgive me, either to condemn me or take me back to Quiso” - as though I were not defiled forty times over. I fell at her feet to implore her forgiveness, to tell her I was not worth what I believed she had done, to beg her only to forgive me and then let me die. Now I know it’s true what she said. God -‘ and, letting her head fall forward on her arms across the table, she sobbed bitterly - ‘God can afford to wait. God can afford to wait.’

Kelderek
put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘we’ll talk no more tonight. Let’s put these thoughts aside and simply do the immediate tasks before us. Very often, in perplexity, that’s best, and a great comfort in trouble. Go and look after the Tuginda. Sleep beside her, and we’ll meet again tomorrow.’

As soon as Ankray had made up his bed,
Kelderek
lay down and slept as he had not slept since leaving Bekla.

44
The
Heart’s
Disclosure

Speck by speck, the noonday sunlight moved along the wall and from somewhere distant sounded the slow
chun\, chun\
of an axe in wood. The Tuginda, her eyes closed, frowned like one tormented by clamour and tossed from side to side, unable, as it seemed, to be an instant free from discomfort. Again Kelderek wiped the sweat from her forehead
with
a cloth dipped in the pitcher by the bed. Since early morning she had lain between sleep and waking, recognizing neither
Melathys
nor himself, from time to time uttering a few random words and once sipping a
little
wine and water from a cup held to her lips. An hour before noon
Melathys
, with Ankray in attendance, had set out to confer with
the
former followers of the Baron and acquaint them with her news, leaving Kelderek to bar the door and watch alone against her return.